I saw this wonderful photograph in a shop window in Killarney last weekend. The man in the photograph looks like a farmer who had gone to town on it's Fair Day. We have our Fair Day (Bantry, today) on the first Friday of the month. In Ireland it was the day when farmers walked their cattle to the town square to sell them. Pigs and sheep were also sold this way.
The man in the photograph reminds me of when I got my first allotment in England. I use to load up Netto (dear old Netto) with carrier bags of our freshly harvested onions, potatoes, cabbage, carrots etc. I would sway down the road with the bags nearly getting stuck in the spokes of the wheel.
Did you ever move house with a bicycle or a supermarket shopping trolley? Or do you carry things home on your push iron? Go on lets have a laugh and a joke.
We moved our few possessions here on tractor and trailer and pick up truck. My mother moved to the farmhouse in 1943 by horse and cart. As livestock hauliers we regularly moved farm labourers in the 1950s and 1960s and my brothers would help as "drivers mate" in school holidays. As a result they now hate lifting furniture!
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel, Good old horse and cart. You see very few of them these days, if at all. More great nostalgia of you living in rural Norfolk Rachel. I always enjoy reading your tales. Thanks.
DeleteThe horse was called Duke and was in the family for years, even after I was born at the end of the line of babies! We all loved Duke and then tractors came along..
DeleteDuke sounds a great horse Rachel. My grandparent had an horse just like him. Oh to go back to those times.
DeleteYears ago, when I was a single parent family, I moved from a rented house down the road to a house I had bought up the same road. Me and the kids, well we moved all our worldly possessions from one house to the other on a borrowed fisherman's trailer. Took lots of going up and down the road. The trailer was just a flat lump of wood on wheels and things kept falling off!
ReplyDeleteWhat great memories Vera. I have moved many a thing with a wheelbarrow and use to go supermarket shopping with a big rucksack. I have also took things home on a bus like a vacuum cleaner with a large hose. Happy days.
DeleteWhen my wife and I bought our first flat, leaving our rented room behind, we moved in with a couple of holdalls and a large suitcase. This was in the days before it occurred to anyone to invent suitcases with wheels, so it was quite hard work. We eventually acquired some furniture.
ReplyDeleteHi Philip. You still get there don't you. I have often said you could fit an house or a flat out just by buying things at car boot sales. I once carried a heavy wood internal door home through the streets and walke through a packed shopping centre carrying a television in my arms. Not to forget the things I have tied to the crossbar of my bike. Thanks!
DeleteGreat post! Reminded me of going to the local market with two kids in a pushchair, one standing on the back bar and so many bags of fruit and vegetables hanging off I could hardly push the darn thing. Eventually I broke it this way. It collapsed in the middle of the road, thankfully just round the corner from our flat.
DeleteThanks LA. Your pushchair story reminded me of when we use to put our bags on the handles of the push chair. When let one of the kids out the pushchair would fall over backwards with the weight of the bags. There's been many a thing transported in a pram other than babies. Supermarket trolleys too. Great memories.
ReplyDeleteYes! That backward flip happened quite often, luckily without injury to the child!
DeleteHow well I remember the flip. I have always said that town planners should design towns after they have pushed a pushchair around. Shops are another nightmare with a pram. Great memories though.
DeleteI used a Reliant Rialto (three- wheeler) to move my stuff from the UK to here.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful way to move Heron. We came in our little Volvo and a neighbour brought our belongings in a Luton box van. Not forgetting two wheelie bins full of plants.
ReplyDeleteMy mum took the family dog to the vets in a silver cross pram. She was a big dog, a doberman. She had collapsed and didnt know what was wrong with her. My dad was working and had the car with him. So my mum loaded her into the pram and we ran all the way to the vets, we were afraid they would close. It must have been 3 miles maybe 4, there.
ReplyDeleteIt turned out she had eaten a coil of rope and had to have an operation to get it out. I cant remember how long it was. I know it was a lot. she was fine after.
What brilliant improvisation to use the silver cross pram for a dog ambulance/taxi. Good to read your doberman was fine after Sol.
ReplyDeleteI moved here with rucksack. Started again from scratch.
ReplyDeleteProbably the right way to move Gwil. Start again with new stuff and fun sourcing and collecting in the process. Saying that I am a bit (a lot) off an hoarder myself. We have boxes of books that I haven't/won't get rid of. A visiting friend once looked round one of the rooms and said: "You have got an eclectic amount of stuff, Dave." Thanks Gwil.
ReplyDeletei really likes your blog and You have shared the whole concept really well. and Very beautifully soulful read! thanks for sharing.
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